


a sum of expectations

by CristinaNovak



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: 57th Expedition, Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, Missing Moments, Original Special Operations Squad | Squad Levi, Scout Regiment, hopefully, rivetra, sunken ship, survey corps
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:41:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28292538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CristinaNovak/pseuds/CristinaNovak
Summary: Levi, Petra, and the things that are not supposed to happen to a soldier. Rivetra.
Relationships: Levi & Petra Ral, Levi/Petra Ral
Comments: 12
Kudos: 45





	a sum of expectations

**Author's Note:**

> I recently re-watched all of AOT again to get ready for the new season and I realized that I still have a soft spot for this sunken ship.
> 
> I tried to keep these around the same lenght, but some of them just became longer. 
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own AOT or any of its characters.

**_i._ **

This wasn’t supposed to happen. 

She slid her arms through the sleeves of her new jacket, stood in front of the mirror, and met eyes that were wide and uncertain. She twisted around and glanced over her shoulder at the reflection of the insignia that she now carried on her back ( _the hope of humanity, the Wings of Freedom_ ) and felt like a child.

She had wanted this for as long as she could remember (as a young girl in school, learning about the branches of the military; as a fresh recruit of the Training Corps, achieving a spot among the top graduates of her division; as a heartless daughter, breaking the news to her father about choosing the Survey Corps over the Military Police) but now her shoulders suddenly seemed too narrow to carry the hope of humanity. Her back too weak for the wings of freedom.

She straightened and saluted; one fist to her chest, the other on her back. She tried to convince herself she didn’t look ridiculous, then glimpsed at the clock on the wall and realized it was almost time to leave.

“This is what you want,” she reassured the girl that stared back at her from the mirror.

She was supposed to be sure of this. She wasn’t supposed to hesitate.

**_ii._ **

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

His first recollections of her were vague. It would be a while before she would be seared into his brain.

If he really tried, he could, to some extent, picture her standing among the Training Corps’ new recruits, saluting in strict formation, hopeful and foolish. He could imagine a flash of copper hair and a glimpse of a yet collected spirit. 

If he focused, he could see her training with the new Survey Corps recruits, bringing down a ten meter titan dummy on her first try, its head spinning off and hitting a nearby tree. He could pretend he knew right from the start that she would become an indispensable soldier, instead of one of the victims of their next expedition. 

But he could not be sure of any of this.

He held the file in his hand and stared at the name scribbled at the top. He walked all the way to Erwin’s office and realized he hadn’t looked up once.

He could be blamed for bad memory, but what he could recall for sure was this; less than forty-two hours ago she had successfully assisted her team in bringing down an abnormal titan barreling toward his own squad at unusual speed, barely seconds after the black flare shot in the air. This was what he also knew; she had achieved her first solo kill (nine meters, zero intelligence) during that same expedition. The titan’s head had spinned in the air like a top and landed in a cloud of smoke right in front of his own horse. 

He knocked on Erwin’s door but did not wait for an answer before barreling into his office. He tossed Petra Ral’s transfer request on his desk and exchanged a brief look with his commanding officer.

A rookie wasn’t supposed to impress him like this. 

**_iii._ **

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

She had known for years the lore that surrounded humanity’s strongest soldier, but after she joined the regiment the narrative changed.

When it came to the titans, he was everything the stories said. He disposed of them the way normal people disposed of useless files (in clean motions, without a second thought). He made carefully calculated attacks seem effortless (like child’s play) and almost alluring (not like the entire human race depended on it).

He was powerful and ruthless, but his animosity was not reserved for titans. The rigidity in his eyes would not dissolve even after the expedition was over. 

“Nice work, Petra!”

She loosened her vertical-maneuvering equipment from around her waist and rested her hands on her knees as she caught her breath. She caught sight of him all across the training grounds, polishing his own equipment with almost obsessive meticulosity. She foolishly wondered if she would ever exchange a single syllable with him.

The hero of the Survey Corps wasn’t supposed to be this unapproachable.

**_iv._ **

This wasn’t supposed to happen. 

The transfer request was taking longer than he imagined and was bothering him more than he cared to admit. 

“You’re the Commander of the Survey Corps, what could possibly be taking you so long,” he had told Erwin in a less thought-out moment. He cleared his throat and added, “she needs to familiarize herself with the squad’s strategy before the next expedition.”

The answer had been simple: paperwork. The look he had given him, though, revealed more than he was letting on. He had just stomped out of his office and silently cursed bureaucracy. 

Since the last expedition, there was an image that had been seared into his brain; hot, dark blood dripping from blades held firmly in each of her hands. Steam rising from under her feet and enveloping her like a spectre. Eyes glowing with traces of disbelief. A quick nod in his direction. A small smile before getting back on her horse. Copper hair and green cloak waving as she galloped away. 

Three full weeks later, Petra Ral’s transfer was finally approved.

He wasn’t supposed to still be thinking about her swift disposal of the titan, three full weeks later.

**_v._ **

This wasn’t supposed to happen. 

She had been the first to arrive at the six o’clock practice that morning, but before she could even get her equipment ready, her team leader stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. He handed her an envelope and her fingers faltered as she took it; she stared at what was unmistakably Commander Erwin Smith’s wax seal stamped on the paper for what felt like an eternity and tried to remember any single thing she might have messed up lately. She gulped and finally brought herself to open the letter.

“You’ll be missed on the team, Petra.”

That night, she lay awake in bed, stared at gray stripes of moonlight filtering through the window, and imagined steely eyes watching her from afar. She thought she could hear the sound of her own blood rushing through her veins. 

She could see Commander Smith’s words floating against the ceiling in his stark, angular handwriting. She could picture his signature at the bottom of the page and Captain Levi’s (far more slanted, almost elegant) right beside it. As she slowly succumbed to sleep, the words drifted away until just three remained, repeated over and over again: _Special Operations Squad_.

Humanity’s strongest himself wasn’t supposed to handpick a newcomer like her for his squad, was he? Yet she thought about the way he drew out the _L_ in his signature until she drifted into sleep. 

**_vi._ **

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

The weather had turned so foul Erwin had ordered an early retreat. A sensible decision, since he could barely see the ears of his own horse. 

As soon as they were back in Trost and the gate was closed behind the arriving regiment, he broke formation and trotted all the way toward the cart where two of his injured squad members currently were. He passed by the damn titan they had managed to capture for Hange; it was small enough to be carried between two similar carts and, even though the thing was absolutely immobilized, the thought that it had been brought here so close to his injured men had been pounding on him harder than the rainfall. 

“What’s the status?” He brought his horse to a slow pace behind the cart where Eld and Gunther looked over an injured Oluo, who sat with his arm folded close to his chest, and an unconscious Petra, who lay beside him looking disturbingly like a corpse. He felt something colder than the rain crawling up his body.

“Broken arm and probably a couple of ribs, Captain,” Oluo answered, then looked at the woman beside him. “Petra here’s still out.” 

“The medic said she’s going to be alright,” Eld added, but Levi was already dismounting his horse and joining the cart. “Though she needs to stay under observation for a couple of days to make sure the impact was not severe.”

He kneeled beside her and used his thumb to softly open one of her eyelids. He met a golden iris that could not look back at him, and he let it close again. His hand lingered on her wet skin as he noticed the gash that ran along the soft line of her cheekbone, and the other bloodier one starting on her temple and hiding underneath her hairline. Droplets of rain slid on her face, tinted red closer to her wounds, and there was a small crease between her eyebrows that would not relent; perhaps behind her eyelids she was still beyond the wall. 

“Trust me, Captain,” was the last thing she had said to him before the attack. He had heard the three words clearly despite the rain that had roared in his ears like a million drums.

“Thank you,” he said to no one in particular, or perhaps to everyone in that cart. 

He trusted each and every member of his team, so of course he cared about what happened to them. He wasn’t supposed to be this troubled, though. He couldn’t let trust turn into fondness this easily. 

**_vii._ **

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

One moment, she had been diving toward a titan at the speed of an arrow, knuckles becoming numb around the handles of her blades, wind and rainfall striking every inch of her body like tiny spears, her blood alive and electrified inside her veins. 

In a second, all of that was replaced by pain. At first it was dull and constant throughout her entire body, accompanied by only darkness. Then it became sharp and it emanated from the side of her head, followed by familiar voices and blurred light. 

The expedition. The titan. She was supposed to act as a decoy. Her teammates depended on her. Captain Levi trusted her.

A gasp escaped her throat and she opened her eyes. Her hands instantly went to her sides, searching for her blades, but her fingers closed around empty air. She looked around for a titan, for the rest of her squad, for a tree to hook on to, but instead she found warm light against stone walls. She tried to sit up but something pushed her back down on what she realized was a soft mattress. 

“Easy, Petra.” A familiar voice and a pair of grey eyes. She tried to sit up again but, for the first time, realized that the one holding her down was Captain Levi. 

“C-Captain! Wha-what happened? Where are we?” Her eyes shifted around her but nothing seemed familiar. She thought she caught glimpses of a tree or a horse nearby, although she was clearly not beyond Wall Rose anymore. It was too dry and too warm.

“You’re in the infirmary,” he said and her surroundings began to condense into lit gas lamps, lined up beds, and a faint drizzle pattering against a surface. She couldn’t feel the rain pelting on her face anymore; instead, it was replaced by raspy sheets against her skin and the weight of hands on her shoulders. “You’ve been unconscious for hours. Blow to the head.” 

“T-the expedition...” she blurted. 

“We retreated early. Don’t worry about it.”

“Gunther, Eld, Oluo _-_ ”

“Are fine. Oluo left earlier,” his voice sounded unfamiliarly comforting, but then again, she was still trying to figure out if she was indeed in an infirmary or still in the middle of Wall Maria territory.

“Hange’s titan. Did we capt-”

“Hange’s probably dissecting it as we speak. Or kissing it, also probable.”

His face finally came into clear focus, very close to her own, and she realized she was still struggling to sit up. She let herself lean back against the pillow and as soon as her head made contact with it, a sharp pain seared at the side of her head. She hissed and brought her fingers up to her temple; her arm bumped against his chest, and she noticed he was still holding her shoulders. She heard him clear his throat before she let go of her and straightened, and the room became slightly colder.

“I’m so sorry, Captain,” she closed her eyes and went over her last recollections of the expedition. She felt the gauze on her temple with the tip of her index finger. 

“What are you talking about.”

“You trusted me and I messed up.” She let her arm fall back to her side. “I think I overestimated the reach of my hooks and miscalculated the distance and gas usage. I would completely understand if you-”

She felt his hand fall lightly on top of her head and the rest of her lame apology dissipated in her throat. The gesture did not hurt, but it pulled her all the way from titan territory back to the infirmary. She glanced at him and found the warm light of the gas lamps reflected like tiny, golden dots in his eyes. Her stomach dropped.

“Rest, Petra.” He withdrew his hand and stepped back. He was already walking away when he added, “I trust you to recover before the next expedition.”

She was grateful he was no longer there to notice how the heat was rushing to her face at an absurd speed. She wasn’t supposed to be this flustered. He was just being a good commanding officer.

**_viii._ **

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

She had been released from the infirmary and then allowed to rejoin the squad’s regular training with enough time to prepare for the following expedition. It was exactly what he had wanted (what the team needed) and she had been performing as well as expected (better, in fact) since her return. But each time he caught a glimpse of the healing tissue on her temple, he hesitated; he preferred not looking at her at all.

The Special Operations Squad sat at the table in an empty meeting room; five heads huddled over a spread-out scroll on which he had hastily scrawled the details of their latest strategy. Erwin was definitely better at this.

“Gunther, you’ll take the rear.” He pointed at one of his scribbles on the paper. “We’ll be close to the forward scouts this time so I need you to be alert of any pursuits from the back.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“What’s that?” Petra placed her index finger on top of a circled ‘X’ surrounded by four similar others.

“That’s you,” he replied, keeping his eyes firmly on the table.

“Why am I there?”

“I need you on standby, in case someone gets injur-”

“ _What_?” Her hand turned into a fist against his lousy scribbles. “There are medics for that.”

“Petra, every squad-”

“Is this because of what happened during the last expedition?” she asked as she straightened up and broke their huddle. He finally looked at her for the first time while the rest of the squad remained wisely quiet, pretending to be very interested on the floor and the ceiling. She folded her arms over her chest and he noticed her fingernails dig into the sleeves of her jacket.

“Of course not.” He thought he sounded convincing enough, and he averted his eyes from the faint traces of her injuries before questioning his own credibility.

“If I’m being punished-”

“You’re not being punished,” he reassured her.

“Then why am I being put on standby? I’m a member of this squad. _You picked me_. You have to trust me, Captain.” She didn’t raise her voice but her words would reverberate in his brain long after. 

He stared at her and she held his gaze without faltering. Her steady eyes reminded him of sunlight, and he looked directly at them until he thought she was going to blind him. He clicked his teeth and grabbed the pen discarded beside the scroll.

“Fine.” He blotched her ‘X’ and scrawled a new one close to his own. “Left flank. Forward attack.” 

He realized the other members of his squad had been holding their breaths when they all let it out at the same time after he spoke. He saw her untangle her arms and pump her fist very close to her face for just an inch. A small grin tugged at her lips while Oluo gave her a pat on the back and Eld chuckled. Somewhere deep down within him, under all of his annoyance, he was slightly amused.

She wasn’t supposed to question him. He had to be firmer than this, even if she was right after all. 

  
  


**_ix._ **

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

When she had entered the mess hall, she had not expected to find anyone there at all, least of all Captain Levi fumbling with a kettle at the stove. She hadn’t expected him to offer her some tea either, but she was beginning to feel the evening chill creeping on her skin and it sounded like a good idea to accept it.

She pulled two tin cups from a nearby cupboard as he turned the stove off and used a rag to hold the kettle by its hot handle. She held the cups out for him, and he stepped closer than she expected to pour the drink, making her arms fold closer to her body.

“I thought you would be on your way home by now,” he said over the gurgling sound of the liquid flowing against the tin. 

“Oh, I’m not going home this time.” She gazed into the circular rims of the cups in her hands, one full of steaming liquid and the other already halfway poured. She thought of a pair titan’s eyes, wide and scalding.

“Why not?” She glanced up and through the steam floating in the short space between them found his almost scrutinizing stare, grey and alive.

“Well, I…” He didn’t break eye contact as he set the kettle back on the now unused stove with a deaf clang, and he didn’t move to sit at the table either. His words lingered in the air, fusing with the tea’s steam, curling together all the way up to the ceiling, and she forgot what they were. She had never stood this close to him.

The hall’s entrance door closed with a loud bang that almost made her spill the drinks in her hands. She thought she noticed him wince ever so slightly before she turned to look in the direction of the sound, partly to find a small group of soldiers entering the hall, and partly to hide her attempt at regaining composure from him. She sensed him seizing one of the cups from her hands with both of his, and she felt rather foolish for noticing. 

They blew at their cups and sat across each other at the table, and she pushed any further absurdity to the back of her mind.

“So you were saying…” he said from behind his cup before he took a sip.

“Right. Well, every time I go home I somehow end up arguing with my father,” she said, regulating her voice into something casual. She took a small sip from the tea and its warmth spread through her entire body. “He’s not exactly happy with this whole Survey Corps thing. Wow, this is good!” She took a second, longer sip.

“He’s not?” He leaned back on his chair, his hand lazily holding his cup on the table, very close to her own two. “Well, I can’t imagine any parent would be.”

“You would be surprised,” she declared, not looking at him but at the few inches of wood and empty space between her hands, fiddling with her tea, and his, very still on the brim of his cup. She felt an unfamiliar urge to close the gap and shook her head. “I decided to stay. Get some training in. Some cleaning maybe. I already finished the upper floor, though.”

“I’ll check it later.” Of course he would. He brought the tea to his lips again and she unwisely missed his proximity. “This is none of my business, but you should talk to him. Your father. Parents don’t live forever, and neither do soldiers.”

She glanced up and blinked. For a split second, she wondered about his past and realized she could not picture him as a child even though he looked so young. She had worked very close to him for months but she still knew very little about him.

“I know,” she finally muttered. His words were nothing new, but rather a bitter reminder she deserved to get. She ran her index finger along the rim of her cup and then tapped it on the side, making a mental note to write a letter to her father. “You’re right, Captain.”

She brought the cup to her lips and just held it there without sipping anything. She stole another glance at him over the metallic rim and thought she noticed intensity spilling through a small crack in his eyes. She also felt the tip of her boot bumping into his under the table, sending a tiny current up her spine when he didn’t move it away.

She wasn’t supposed to notice these things, to think about him beyond the Survey Corps, to feel anything besides strictly professional admiration. Not for the first time, she bitterly had to remind herself of something; he was her _commanding officer_. 

  
  


**_x._ **

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

During the idle moments between expeditions, and training sessions, and cleaning mornings, she would often split from the rest of the group and approach him. She would linger in his orbit and make small conversation about anything at all (the titans, the Special Operation Squad, the horses, the weather) and he had grown to appreciate it.

He was giving his horse a well-deserved carrot when he heard the rustling footsteps against the grass. He already knew it was her before she stopped by his side and reached out to pat the horse between the eyes.

“What do you make of him?” he said, glancing over his shoulder at the kid. He sat at the table with the rest of his squad members, and nodded with wonder and curiosity and whatever story Oluo was feeding him. 

“He’s just a child, Captain,” she briefly looked back too, then she bent down to take a carrot from the basket. “What is he, fifteen?”

“How old were _you_ when you joined the Corps?” He crossed his arms on his chest and watched her hold the carrot against the animal’s muzzle, waiting for it to bite all the way through it. Her lips pursed and she nodded.

“Anyway, he seems harmless. I think we can trust him.” She wiped her hand against the hem of her green cloak. “What do _you_ think, Captain?”

Her eyes were wide and trusting and ready; they had always looked at him like this, but now he found himself trying to find a single trace of skepticism in them and failed. He glanced back at the rest of the members of the Special Operations Squad. He certainly believed Eren was, to some extent, harmless, but he thought about their next expedition and felt something tightening inside his chest. 

“We’ve got to trust him either way,” he answered simply. He looked back at her and extended his hand toward her for… for what, exactly? He picked an invisible lint on her shoulder, and the tips of her hair tickled his knuckles. “Keep your eyes open, Petra,” he said, wishing he could just tell her everything.

He wasn’t supposed to hide information from his squad, but then again, he couldn’t compromise this. He wondered if she could tell. 

**_xi._ **

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

Gunther was dead. Eld was dead. And she was probably going to die, too.

“Petra we need to regroup! _Petra_!”

They had truly done their best at fighting this creature, this thing, but as its regenerated eye followed her she wondered if she could’ve done more. Too late to find out, was it? She was losing altitude by the second but it could’ve stretched into infinity.

Intellectually, she knew this could happen sooner or later. Since the moment she put on her uniform and chose to bear the Wings of Freedom, she knew this was the price to pay. Her father had warned her about this throughout most of her life. It was the first thing they told them when they joined the regiment. It was what they prepared for before each and every expedition. And yet…

She unbelievably thought of Levi. She wondered where he was. She wondered what he would do now. She didn’t doubt he was still alive and she wished she had said many things to him. She never asked him about his past. Had he really been a thug before joining the Corps? Had Erwin Smith really dragged him into the regiment? Why was he so obsessed with cleaning? Would he still trust them (trust _her_ ) after this? Something wasn’t adding up.

She was supposed to be ready to die, right since her first expedition. Even before that. She just wished he was there. 

**_-_ **

This is what is supposed to happen.

Soldiers join a regiment knowing full well that they might not live to see the result they are pursuing in the first place. They join a regiment understanding that the cause they are doing so for might not come into fruition during their lifetime. They join and acknowledge that sacrifices will be made and lives (their comrades’, their own) might be lost. They join in the hope that, if they die, their deaths might not be in vain.

He holds the badge he stole from her uniform between his fingers and tries to remind himself that this is what is supposed to happen. He runs his thumb over the threads knit tightly together into the Wings of Freedom and blinks in hopes that it will stop the burning sensation behind his eyes. It doesn’t.

He thinks of his squad and feels this is history repeating itself, believes it should hurt less. He tries to imagine sunlight spilling from golden eyes but all he can think of is corpses being dropped from a cart. Vacant, dull eyes in the middle of a forest. Bodies in unnatural positions. 

He ends up giving the badge away, pretending it belonged to some other soldier, expecting it to give some kind of awful solace to someone else even though it had failed giving it to him.

This is what is supposed to happen but it’s easy to believe he could’ve done more (saved more, saved them, saved _her_ ). Everything always looks simpler in hindsight. Every course of action seems possible. Every blind spot becomes apparent. 

Long after the expedition, he still expects to see them at every turn. He still hears their incessant banter in the meeting room. He still thinks she will approach him during an idle moment between training sessions. He still catches glimpses of copper hair in the dark. 

He knows they’re gone and yet does nothing to stop. He knows he’s merely fooling himself, but certain things are just supposed to happen.   
  


**Author's Note:**

> That was my first time writing AOT. Hope I didn't butcher the story, the timeline, the characters, the equipment, the titans, the backstory, the good ol' memories from season 1. At least not too much.
> 
> Mainly based on the anime & manga. Some parts were inspired by excerpts from the AOT Tactis game.


End file.
